It’s been one of those weird weeks when the moon should have been full. But it wasn’t. Perhaps the 100 plus degree heat an 99.999997% humidity have steamed the brains of Middle Georgians. Poor Richard doesn’t know exactly what it is, but things are slightly askew here . . . to paraphrase my buddy Bob Galloway, the curmudgeon, the entire town is about “half a bob off plumb.”

Item One

I didn’t get to meet her, but right hand man Brian said that she looked relatively normal when she walked through the doors of the printshop behind the red awnings on Poplar (name carefully concealed to avoid disrupting the peaceful sleep of the powers that be at the franchise . . . hint, sounds like Gralpharaphics). She explained to Brian that she was opening a new business and needed letterhead, envelopes, business card, etc. This used to be a fairly common occurrence at printing companies, and Brian looked forward to serving a new customer.

It’s not uncommon that a new customer will ask the price of a product before they provide a description of it. While it is possible to quote a price that will cover most contingencies, I’ve yet to find a customer who will accept an estimate of “probably somewhat less than $10,000,” without question. Standard operating procedure is to try to narrow the description a bit and find a solution that is reasonably in line with the customer’s expectations and budget.

Brian attempted and ascertained that the customer would like to use paper for her letterhead and envelopes and would also like her symbol on it. She specifically said “symbol,” not logo or wordmark or even image. She wanted her symbol on the letterhead . . . in color . . . and (as she glanced and pointed at a presentation folder on our display rack) “smashed into the paper like that.”

Skeptical that the cost of embossing a process color logo on a short run of letterhead would be practical for a new business, Brian started to suggest alternatives. The customer was adamant. What she wanted was her symbol smashed into the letterhead, business cards and envelopes. Ever helpful, Brian offered to run down prices and asked if the customer had her logo as a digital file that we could use . . . or at least something that we could look at to help us prepare the estimate. The customer fumbled a bit, then reached in her purse, removed her billfold and then her drivers license.

“That’s it,” she exclaimed, pointing at the photo on the license. “That’s my symbol. That’s what I want!”

Brian, ever mindful of the endless time and patience available to the printshop owner, deferred to Poor Richard and told the customer that I would follow up with her. I haven’t contacted her yet, but I do have an idea. Perhaps something like this might work?

Item Two

Three paragraphs, bullet points, and numbers. Poor Richard is probably going to get in big trouble with this one, because the customer is going to read this blog, identify himself, and get supremely ticked off!

Here’s the text of the email we received:

Whereas, from time to time revisions are made to documents created for Amalgamated Peanut Butter and Jelly Roll Company (APB&J Rollco), and said documents are printed and archived by Gralpharaphics of Macon, the aforesaid company (APB&J Rollco) wishes to indicate the occurrence of revisions to each document produced and to verify the currency of each revision prior to production of duplications, reprints, or new and unique iterations of each printed version or versions.

Because the temporality of the aforementioned documents is currently not indicated, this may currently counterindicate the currency of our current versions. In fact, our customers have occasionally called the currency of our current versions into question due to the lack of an evidential indicant that the version they received was indeed correct and produced contemporaneously with the latest APB&J Rollco product described within.

Our goals are thus:

to accurately indicate the current version

to convey this clearly to our customers

to assure that the latest iteration of each document is indeed the current version

(to confuse the pants off of the folks at Gralpharaphics)

To that end we require that your company immediately implement the following changes as pertain to the documents and versions of documents you currently produce, have produced in the past, or might conceivably produce in the future for APB&J Rollco:

Indicate the current version on the document

Do this in such a way that the temporality of the version is conveyed to each customer

Destroy, delete, or otherwise dispense with document versions that are untemporal or not current

Many thanks for the services you render for APB&J Rollco and for your prompt attention to this matter.

–Name withheld in the vain hope that Poor Richard will go undiscovered.

Admittedly, Poor Richard has elaborated a bit . . . but not a lot. The actual email we received from our good, but very precise, customer was almost as complicated as the gobbledygook inserted above and did require a phone call to ascertain exactly what the customer wanted . . . a date entry at the bottom of each form we produce to indicate the latest revision.

Item Three

The customer was absolutely serious. So serious in fact that he noted a specific instruction on the proof copy that he faxed back to us and on his email approval of the final proof. We’ve produced shells similar to the one the customer wanted many times. A shell is boilerplate language (and sometimes a form image) that can be fed through a laser printer to overprint the specifics of a contract, invoice, etc.

In this case, we were asked to print 5000 copies on one side. Presumably the specifics would be printed on the other. There was no specific paper requirement . . . we printed on 60# offset text (no watermarks).

The instruction: Please make sure that this information is printed on the back of the paper.

I think we did OK. We stacked all 5000 copies printed side down in the boxes and delivered them to the customer. He thought we were wonderful!

Times are still rough in the printing business, but it laughter is a great diversion. Isn’t life grand?

It’s been a while, gentle readers, and I’m sure that many of you have given me up for dead. Well, to paraphrase Monty Python, we’re not quite dead yet. Nonetheless, the images of loading bodies onto the two-wheeled cart are ummmh . . . ominously relevant.

It’s been a very rough two years, and I’m still looking for the corner to turn. This may be a recession in the rest of the U.S., but in our small market, it feels a lot like a depression. We are struggling with a bad combination of circumstances. We have fewer customers with less money and greater reluctance to spend it. This is coupled with a sea change in the way we communicate that has not at all favored our core business: print. And to state that our resources are limited would be a wild exaggeration. They are simply nonexistent.

I’ve read about the capital trap. Usually it refers to banks and the total contradiction of government demands to both lend more and raise capital reserves. This is prima facie lunacy. How can you do both? Like most small businesses, the printshop behind the red awnings has been slighted when it comes to government largesse; and the banks quit lending to us before the balance sheet deteriorated to the point that Poor Richard could actually understand the bankers’ reluctance.

Poor Richard would like his business to become a Transformer. I’ve always been a little intrigued by these gadgets. The Transformers came along in my college days . . . I remember a slightly older friend’s 5 year old showing me the first one. “Now it’s a car, now it’s a monster machine!” he said as he pressed the button that released the monster.

“Now it’s a printshop, now it’s a monster communications machine!” Alas, were it only so.

The new “marketing services” that we’re all supposed to be so excited about providing did not gain traction in our little town. We’ve done a little, but the time requirements have been high and the return low. There are some product opportunities, but at this point we lack the capital resources to pursue them.

Our little shop is caught in it’s own version of a “capital trap.” When things were good, we invested in what we thought would be the capital equipment that would keep us growing in years to come. Justification of the equipment was based on the ill-conceived (in hindsight) notion that business would grow a little, or at least remain stable at mid-2000s levels. In our case, we still have the equipment, but the demand for the production has faded. We’re paying for the equipment, but it isn’t paying for itself.

In a different time, we would just sell the machinery, stomach a little loss and move on. Now, the only market for the machines we have purchased is overseas and the selling prices really don’t even justify the trouble required to move the equipment. Unfortunately, the notes on the machinery are not based upon present valuations, but upon the value of the machines before we warped into a parallel universe where printing equipment is worth little more than scrap metal. Naturally, the banks and leasing companies are reluctant to simply concede the devaluation of the machinery or the obligation. It’s kindof like real estate . . .

There is very little solace in the knowledge that we’re not alone in this predicament. Poor Richard has a friend, customer, and fellow small business owner in a completely different line of work that can describe the same scenario; and I suspect that every small business owner can tell some version of this or a similar tale. Here’s the point: we won’t be able to grow ourselves out of this depression until we can pay off some of the debt burden that we’re saddled with.

Somehow, the politicians (and the media) have the strange idea that small businesses are “reluctant” to invest and to hire new people. They think that all we need is the right “stimulus.” The latest platitudes and lip service from the pandering politicians of the Potomac comes in the form of a $30 billion fund to encourage regional banks to lend to creditworthy small businesses (see the Business Week article). Poor Richard wonders just who that would be. Wake up! It’s not reluctance that is the problem, it’s resources. I am very skeptical that the small business economy can be “transformed” by simply flipping a magical economic switch and not the least bit convinced that there is yet any understanding of the importance of the small business segment of the economy among those who ostensibly govern our nation.

Reluctance does come into play when it comes to taking on more debt, though. Most of us will never be as comfortable with debt as we may have been before the economic debacle. The good news is that the debt we currently have will one day be retired. The payments do eventually come to an end. Somehow, some of us will manage to work ourselves out of this predicament; probably despite the feeble efforts of the politicians. We’ll hold on until we can find a little money to try the next best thing. And maybe that next best thing will work and we can make some money and then invest in new equipment and hire new employees.

Maybe we’ll even invest in new businesses . . . wonder how medical marijuana would grow in the basement of the old building on Poplar Street?

Poor Richard indulges in anachronism. He still reads newspapers. You may remember them, they’re printed with ink on cheap paper. People used to take them on buses and subway cars to annoy others. They could be rolled up to train dogs, much to the dismay of the paper boys (another anachronism). What Poor Richard has been reading lately is a lot of conjecture about what a government sponsored health care system would be like and how it might be administered.

There seems to be a great deal of skepticism amongst a very vocal segment of the population regarding the capability of the U.S. government to administer a single payer system. Our intrepid and career-oriented legislators have euphemistically entitled this version of a health care fix “the public option,” with the inference that if the private option currently in existence is irrevocably broken, the public option that they propose can’t be too much worse.

Poor Richard finds that comforting, I think. But he doesn’t understand the reticence to create another multi-trillion dollar bureaucracy to administer health care. After all, it’s only money (we can always print more) and the U.S. government is so good at bureaucracy.

Mailman with brains

And I am simply astounded that none of our clever would-be statesmen have grasped the phenomenal opportunity to re-employ a failing public bureaucracy that is dangling right before their eyes. In past blog posts, Poor Richard has written about the tribulations of the U.S. Postal Service (See Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Dead Economy). After years of study led them to the realization that people don’t want to mail anything anymore, the USPS has decided to let some people go. Fortuitously, they are releasing an army of career bureaucratic types at the exact time these folks are needed . . . to administer the new health care system!

Downsized postal workers are eminently qualified to run the new health care system. Never mind that most of them don’t know anything about biology, physiology and the like. They all know how to follow the regulations. There is no way that the new regulations for a national health insurance program could be more cryptic or nonsensical than USPS regs. It’s a natural fit . . . today a mailman, tomorrow a claims agent or even an underwriter!

Just consider the benefits:

The postal workers are already on the government payroll. There’s no need to re-test them for incompetence.

Instead of hundreds of thousands of early retired postal workers placing a burden on the USPS retirement system, they could be gainfully employed spending government money and determining whether Aunt Sally really needs a new kidney.

There would be no concerns about health care delivery under the new system. USPS employees are really good at delivery.

If the regulations for the “public option” don’t make sense, it won’t be an obstacle to the re-employed postal workers. They’re used to dealing with irrational regulations and have no compunctions about explaining nonsense to their customers. It’ll be even easier if they’re the only game in town!

Poor Richard suggests that we call the new system PostalCare, in recognition that the new bureaucracy will probably benefit the newly re-employed postal workers more than the rest of society. Poor Richard also agrees with President Obama that Congress should act in great haste . . . we wouldn’t want this wonderful opportunity to slip away!

My apologies to our friends at the postal service. This one was just too good to pass up. Life is grand, isn’t it?

A Summer Sale.

That’s what the subject line of the email stated. I nearly clicked the junk button, but a quick glance at the sender held my attention. DMMAdvisory. Wait a minute, that’s the U.S. Post Office. They don’t have summer sales . . . what’s up here?

DMMAdvisory is the USPS email link to keep mailers informed about all sorts of goings on at the Postal Service. The DMM is the domestic mail manual. Actually, I think it’s the domestic mail manuals . . . there’s a bunch of them (if you’re curious, you can look at ’em here). Usually, the DMMAdvisory is all about new rules that are going to be issued because they’ll make the USPS more efficient or rescinded because even though the USPS will be more efficient, everyone else will be less efficient. The Advisories also talk a lot about Intelligent Barcodes, Move Updates, and services like PostalOne!, the online portal where mailers like AlphaGraphics are supposed to enter in all of their mailing data to make the USPS more efficient. And we’ll be glad to do it, too . . . just as soon as the USPS figures out how to make the website work.

I’ve never seen a DMMAdvisory that talked about a summer sale. I got kind of excited about that, thinking maybe this was something we could use to promote mailing services. So I clicked on the link to find out about it. What I got was a 32 page .pdf document. The USPS doesn’t advertise a sale, you understand, they file a Notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission. That kind of advertising wouldn’t get results for the rest of us, but apparently it works for the USPS.

Poor Richard, feeling brave, waded into the document. The first important fact I discovered is that Standard Mail is an important investment for American business and that it is incumbent upon the USPS to encourage American businesses to invest:

The current state of the economy has forced businesses, particularly Postal Service customers, to pull back on important investments necessary for ensuring their continued prosperity. The precipitous decline in the use of Standard Mail for marketing products and services is an illustrative example of the unwanted choices many postal customers have had to make because of the economy. The Postal Service believes it can, and should, find ways to help its customers increase their use of mail during these challenging economic times (pp. 1 -2).

On p. 3, Poor Richard discovers that the sale will run from July 1 to September 30. A 30% discount for 3 months, that’s some sale! Oops, not so fast . . .here’s a catch on p.4:

The “Summer Sale” program will run from July 1, 2009, through September 30, 2009, and will provide a 30 percent rebate to eligible mailers on Standard Mail letters and flats volume above a mailer-specific threshold. The threshold is calculated by taking the percentage change between a mailer’s postal fiscal year-to-date (October 2008 through March 2009) volume and the volume mailed in the same period last year, and applying that percentage to the volume the mailer mailed between July 1, 2008,
and September 30, 2008.

So, the deal’s not so sweet. The 30% discount only applies to the increase of mail volume in relation to the ratio of last year’s to this year’s mailings from October to March, factoring in of course the projected daily volume of pork belly contracts in the same period and the average shoe size of a U.S. mail carrier.

Reading on, Poor Richard discovers another hitch:

Qualifying mailers must be able to demonstrate volume of at least one million Standard Mail letters and flats, between October 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, for one or more permit imprint advance deposit account(s), precanceled stamp permit(s), or postage meter permit(s).

This is looking less like a sale to Poor Richard. One million Standard Mail letters effectively rules out 100% of my customers. In fact, it probably rules out 99.9% of the mailers in South Georgia. And reading further:

Mail service providers (MSPs) are not eligible for the program.

It also rules out mail service providers, like AlphaGraphics; who if they might be large enough to aggregate and mail a million pieces of mail or so for their customers and wanted to promote mailing services and pass along a little discount, would not be eligible to participate.

“Not a sale at all,” thinks Poor Richard.

The next couple of pages communicate the Postal Service’s intent to contact eligible mailers by letter and then direct them to a website to register to participate in the summer sale. The projected additional revenue for the USPS from the sale is between $38 and $95 million with costs at around $1 million to administer the Summer Sale. A respectable projection of return, but qualified with this statement:

In particular, an overestimate of the additional volume generated by the incentive or an underestimate of the administrative effort required could unfavorably affect expected financial performance. (p.7)

Unexpected costs related to the malfunction of the response website are also presumably not included. The remaining 23 pages of the .pdf file encompass further justifications of the US Postal Service’s desire to try a “sale,” the regulatory provisions which allow them to do so, why the Postal Regulatory Commission should approve the request, and 17 pages of appendices that detail applicable postal rates, projections on pork belly contracts and historical data pertaining to the average shoe size of a US Postal Service Mail Carrier.

Poor Richard might humbly suggest that if Standard Mail is indeed in “precipitous decline” (and I have no doubt that it is), this proposal is unlikely to rectify the situation. I might also point out that a rate increase is scheduled for May 11 that will presumably do little to reverse the decline or encourage postal service customers to “invest in their continued prosperity” through a return to conventional mail.

Mail volume, like print volume, is decreasing; but there remains a need and demand for both services, at least in the near term. Mail has come under competitive pressure since the introduction of the telegraph, but in today’s communications environment, the pressures on both mail and print are extreme. Barring a collapse of the Internet, mail and print volumes will continue to decrease. That said, there are still applications where printed mail is the best solution. Direct mail is demonstrably more effective with the 45 and over age group (dinosaurs like me, irrespective of Facebook enrollment). E-mail blasts will never have the impact of a well-written letter, especially if it is personalized. Even “junk mail,” because it is tangible, has measurably justifiable place in some marketing campaigns.

Because the cost to disseminate printed mail is higher than electronic communications, it is necessary to justify its value. Specifically, this can be measured as ROI (return on investment) in any campaign. It is also important to make it easier for customers to access and understand both printing and mailing. Poor Richard thinks that the US Postal Service is not succeeding in this area. Recent changes to the postal code (Move updates and the IM barcode) have been cumbersome to implement, difficult for mail service providers to understand, and completely inscrutable to our customers. These changes have not really provoked anger among USPS customers, because they expect this kind of clumsiness, but the customers are very definitely not encouraged to increase their volume of mailing.

Perhaps the USPS should consider doing something proactive for their customers to encourage them to continue to consider mail as a viable means of communication. Do you think a sale would work?

“Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!” reads the subject line of the email. Thinking that this might just be the order I’ve been waiting for all week, Poor Richard quickly opens the email in Thunderbird.

“My boss wants to do some postcards. How much will 1,000 be?”

“No clue,” responds Poor Richard’s brain as his eyes scan the rest of the post for more information, or at least a phone number to call. Phone number found, fingers are dialing.

“Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of (let’s call her Nancy Jean . . . don’t think I have any real customers called Nancy Jean) Nancy Jean, I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave a message, I’ll get back with you just as quickly as possible.”

“Nancy Jean, it’s Richard at AlphaGraphics. I received your inquiry by email. I’ll be happy to get you some numbers on the postcards, but I’ll need some details. Specifically, if you’ll let me know the size you’d like, whether they will be in color or black and white, coated or uncoated paper, who will be providing the art, and whether you’d like us to mail them. Let me know and I’ll get back with you as quickly as possible.”

The fingers follow instructions and produce an estimate for 1000 4.25 x 6 postcards on gloss cover. Still hoping beyond hope for something like a real job, the fingers include pricing for mail services. Because Poor Richard’s brain still has no clue about the design of the postcard, the fingers include the standard AlphaGraphics caveat:

Prices are for production only. Additional charges will apply for layout, design, or file modifications required before printing.

“Nancy Jean,” says Poor Richard’s brain,” what that means is that I still don’t know what you want to do or what will be required to do it.”

It’s 10:00 am when Poor Richard clicks the send button.

12:15 pm – lunchtime. Check the email.

“RE: FWD: Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!”

“Richard, can you help with this?” writes Nancy Jean, responding to her boss’ terse notation:

“Nancy Jean, you’ve got to do better than this!”

Poor Richard’s fingers dial once again.

“Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Nancy Jean, I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave a message, I’ll get back with you just as quickly as possible.”

Poor Richard’s fingers add color one side and black ink two sides to the estimate and press the send button. It’s 12:30.

3:00 PM – done with bindery work downstairs. Let’s check the email.

“RE: FWD: RE: RE: FWD: Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!”

“Can we do something bigger?” writes Nancy Jean.

“Isn’t 4.25 x 6 a little small for a postcard?” writes her boss. “How much would a bigger card cost?”

“Bummer,” says Poor Richard’s brain, now beginning to realize that this is likely to turn into nothing. Poor Richard’s fingers revise the entire estimate for 5.5 x 8.5 cards. The postage estimate is revised to reflect the cost of mailing a larger card.

“Nancy Jean,” types Poor Richard’s fingers, ” here are revised estimates for larger cards. If you could please call me to discuss, I’d really, really appreciate it. We’d certainly like to help with your project and if you could call to discuss the project, I’m sure that we can find a way to make this work for you.” The fingers click send. It’s 3:15 PM.

“Hi, Nancy Jean, this is Richard at AlphaGraphics. I’m calling about the postcards we corresponded about yesterday.”

“Oh, Richard,” says Nancy Jean, “we really needed to get those postcards in the mail yesterday. When we couldn’t get all the information we needed, the boss decided not to send them. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks for thinking of us,” says Poor Richard’s mouth. Poor Richard’s brain isn’t working at all. “Please let me know if you decide to try again. And if you’ll let me know the budget, we’ll try our best to find a solution that will work for you.”

“Richard, you know my boss doesn’t work like that,” replies Nancy Jean. “Hope you have a good day today!”

“Nuff said,” says Poor Richard’s brain.

“Bye,” says Poor Richard.

Poor Richard’s fingers hang up the phone. Time to check email. Maybe there will be an order there . . . we could really use a good order.

My printshop is possessed by demons and I’ve been given the job from Hell.

Aside from that, things are going astoundingly well.

Let me preface this post with a simple statement of faith. I know that God is still in control and I am firmly convinced that he has a sense of humor. I will not sit in the ashheap in sackcloth and bemoan the situation, because it really is too ridiculous to be serious.

I’ll try to chart the sequence of events. I think it began when Debra, the service tech who works on our nearly palindromatic digital color machine (begins and ends with an X) was given a week’s vacation by her nearly palindromatic company. Good for Debra, bad for AlphaGraphics. The nearly palindromatic machine kicked out and backup was sent in. At 10 am on day one, he had been trained to repair the machine and was fully confident. At 7 pm on day one, he was missing parts and had patched the machine well enough for us to run some critical jobs. At 9:30 am on day two, we had run one critical job and the X___X digital color machine had melted down. Backup showed again on day 3, this time with tenacity, a cell phone, and a full day’s supply of cigarettes. Day 3 and Day 4 went by and backup gave up completely. Poor Richard calls for reinforcements from the big city. They show up on Day 5 and we’re up and running . . .

BUT: We’re printing in bright reds and bright blues.

Upstairs . . . the fans won’t go off on the machine that is manufactured by the company whose initials begin with the eighth and sixteenth letters of the alphabet. The fans are a good thing . . . they cool down the ultraviolent lamps that make the ink stick to whatever it is that you’re running through the machine. It doesn’t take 2 hours for the lamps to cool. Mike, who runs the machine upstairs, decides that two hours is indeed excessive and perhaps he should turn the machine off and on to see if it will reset. He is successful at turning the machine off.

We have a good customer, who, like all of the rest of our good customers, is trying to squeeze blood from turnips. We’ve missed a couple of jobs, but she’s sent us this one. It’s a booklet . . . all ready in Microsoft Publisher. She needs 75 of them. All of the photos and none of the fonts are embedded in the file. It’s ginormous . . . we could actually see the lump coming over the phone lines as we downloaded it. It has 6,374 photos compressed into 24 pages. All were taken with the camera in my cell phone and they’re all in RGB mode. She needs 75 books in color and she won’t understand it if we charge her to fix the file. Nor is she particularly excited about fixing the file herself.

Fast forward from last week to today . . . Jamaal, my remaining pressman, is totally unflappable. What that means is that he can’t be flapped. I am convinced that he could smile through the devastation of a hurricane or the horrors of nuclear war. At 1 PM he prepares our envelope press for a short run of remittance envelopes. Printing these envelopes requires a special feeder. It is a fairly cantankerous beast on a good day. Today, the envelope press will not run . . . it is putting ink where paper should go and paper where ink should go. Jamaal switches the envelope feeder to another press. It will not feed. Poor Richard tries to help and makes matters worse . . . much worse. By 4:30, Jamaal is flapped . . . he has managed to accomplish 45 minutes of work in 3.5 hours.

Upstairs, a technician has arrived to fix the machine manufactured by the company whose initials begin with the 8th and 16th letters of the alphabet. He is fortified with 3 large boxes of parts sent by that company . . . all of the circuitboards needed to fix a wide format printer or put a man on the moon. None of them are working. Poor Richard is praying that his customers will be patient. Didn’t it take about 10 years after Kennedy’s speech before Neal Armstrong actually played golf on the moon?

Debra has returned from vacation! Hallelujah! The booklet from hell is still printing in bright reds and blues! Not Hallelujah!

If there is one thing that I have learned after 10 years in this business, it’s that sometimes the best solution is just to go home. The kids have band concerts tonight. What could be better than that?

Way back in the early 1700s, Jonathan Swift wrote a clever essay entitled “A Modest Proposal.” If my recollection serves me well, it was directed at the concurrent problems of poverty and population growth in Ireland. Swift’s hyperbolically satirical solution was simple . . . sell the children as foodstuff.

Swift maintained that the market for the delicacy was adequate, though the price might be somewhat steep:

“I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.”

Could it be that our paternalistic leaders in Washington D.C., tiring of the practice of insignificant populist one-upmanship, have finally come upon the holy grail of dissipation? It seems that they’re now willingly selling our children to finance their own political (and assuredly financial) well-being.

Meager billion dollar pork-barrel projects (a la Senator Byrd) have become passe. I mean, what’s an FBI crime lab or two in comparison to a $600 billion dollar distribution of political largess?

And there’s really no need to face up to the problems we’re creating right now, is there? Surely very few of the respected Senators or Representatives hope to live long enough to even see a small dent made in the Federal debt. It’s our children they’re selling anyway . . . why should they care?

The market for children has changed a bit, too. Rather than selling our kids as delicacy for persnickety aristocrats, instead they’ve been sold piecemeal to China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. But we don’t have to deal with that uncomfortable fact right now, do we? So, let’s just mint a little more money, increase the debt another trillion or so and leave the problem of how to pay it back to the next generation.

Let’s do the math. As I figure it, $600 billion divided by the population of the U.S. (roughly 300 million), comes to only roughly nearly precisely $2,000 per capita. For a small family like mine, with nine (including grandparents) in the household, we’ll only have to cough up $18,000 to pay off this bit of Congressional generosity. That’s really only chicken feed compared to the total obligation owed by our country. According to the The National Debt Clock , the per capita debt at 6:47 EST this evening (November 22, 2008) stood at $34,946.20. For my family, that’s a note of only $314,515.79.

In all fairness, the debt is owned by all kinds of different entities. 22% is owned by foreign and international investors. Roughly 4% is owned by some of the same domestic banks that are currently being bailed out. If you have Savings Bonds, you actually have bought up some of the very debt that you owe . . . take a minute and think that one over.

Here’s the point. It’s not just that we’re electing the wrong people to Congress. We are. But we’ve developed a political system that virtually guarantees that the last thing an ethical, responsible and honest human being will do is run for public office. Take the current Senate campaign in Georgia as an example . . . but I digress.

Back to the proposal. Let’s cut to the chase . . . let’s have an end to our politicians and their Lilliputian attempts to solve our country’s difficulties. Poor Richard proposes a sheerly Brobdingnagian solution . . . let’s sell the children outright! It’s reasonable, even if it does involve a little slavery or indentured servitude. We’ve incurred a debt for them, why not offer them up on the open market and turn some of the debt they owe into cold, hard cash? After all, what’s the likelihood that a 10 year old will ever be able to pay off the debt that our leaders are obligating them to? Sell them to the rich.

We should take this action sooner, rather that later; while the value of a small child still exceeds the $34,000 in debt that they owe.

Acknowledging my obligation to Swift, I’ll end with his words:

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the
least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary
work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country,
by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the
poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children,
by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being
nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.*

*With tongue firmly in cheek, my youngest is 12 and far too contrary to make a good servant and while my lovely bride is still of childbearing age, a crafty surgeon precluded this option for us several years ago.